6.10 Join the Native Bee Network

Wild bees in your backyard can be the perfect bees for pollinating your local farms and orchards. Join our citizen science project and find native bees across North America.

Traditionally, agriculture relies and places significant value on only one pollinator: the introduced honey bee. For millions of years, thousands of different native bee species have been pollinating our local flowers and food plants. Every bee species plays an important role in pollinating our crops and supporting biodiversity is the best way to grow more food.

Most of our native North American bee species have been identified and cataloged, but we have a lot of unanswered questions about how to raise and support native hole-nesting bees. Questions like:

When are the bees flying, what size nesting hole do they prefer?

What kind of flowers do they like?

What do they use to build nests?

Do they hibernate as adults or as larvae over the winter?

Your bee hotel may have the answers to these questions and you can help us improve bee diversity in our gardens, farms, and orchards.

Our Native Bee Network program brings together gardeners, conservation districts, campuses, and right of ways to discover our native bees. Individuals can join the Native Bee Network program by purchasing a unique NBN Number and register bee hotels on our NBN Map.